Maddy Irvine
‘I had a wonderful childhood, born and brought up in Virginia Water in Surrey, which seemed at that time to be like a real village. My dad was a baker, and his shop, Wentworth Patisserie, was one in a parade Read more »
People
A selection of past cover stories about local people from in and around Marshwood Vale.
Giles Aspinall
‘I was brought up in the West Midlands, just north of Telford, so I’m not a local boy. Telford’s maybe not the best address but is in fact steeped in history, with the Ironbridge Gorge nearby. I was lucky to Read more »
Emily Bolton
‘When I was three months old my parents brought me to Nallers Farm near Askerswell, which they had taken out huge loans to buy for £12,000 in 1970 with 100 acres. My father, John Bolton, then working as a builder Read more »
Alan Pearce
Robin Mills met Alan Pearce in Bridport, Dorset ‘I was born at 9 o’clock in the evening on the 28th November 1932, in Morden in Surrey. My father was born in Wandsworth, my mother in Battersea; my father worked at Read more »
Holly Neil
‘My family’s all Dorset born and bred, I’ve lived here in this house all my life, and my Mum and Dad come from round here too. Mum works at Beaminster School as a teaching assistant for SEN children, and my Read more »
Ian Scott
‘I came to work in Dorset in April 1974, on a community development project funded by the Department of the Environment. I was working in London and quite keen to get out; I had failed three interviews already for related Read more »
Kate Fowler
‘I was born in Bridport in 1970. My Mum had Asian flu early in her pregnancy, which was diagnosed as the reason I was born deaf, and that was confirmed when I was 6 months old. From then on for Read more »
Peter Bartlett
Julia Mear met Peter Bartlett in Beer, Devon. ‘I was born in one of the Fisherman’s cottages on Sea View Road, the fifth one down, in 1932. The locals know me as ‘Chunky’. My grandfather, Joseph, was one of the Read more »
Bella Blanchard
‘My childhood was spent in rural Wiltshire, where my sister, two brothers and I had a very happy and carefree upbringing. My mother took us riding around the countryside and we played in the fields and woods. My father was Read more »
Brian Rice
‘I was born in Yeovil maternity hospital in 1936. My mother died a couple of weeks later from septicaemia and complications following the birth; there were no antibiotics in those days. My father arranged for my paternal grandparents to bring Read more »